Supporting athletes with type-1 diabetes in their athletic pursuits through nutrition

Living in speed hell

In the midst of Monday’s speed intervals, these were the thoughts formulating in my head:

800 metres? At this pace? Are you freaking kidding me?Holy freaking crud monkey, I can’t breathe!I think I’m having a heart attack!Ohmygawd, alert the authorities, I think Coach NZ is trying to kill me!Why did I not pack along water???

This week’s speed training had me running 4 sets of 400 metres fast/90 seconds easy/800 metres fast/90 seconds easy and repeat at a 4:30 min/km pace. For those of you who’ve been following me for awhile, you know that while I very much want to be faster in my running, I absolutely loathe speed training. And so, when I saw 800 metres on the schedule, I had serious thoughts of skipping it. But then, that stupid little smug angel on my shoulder reminded me of just how guilty I’d feel if I didn’t put the effort in. Damn her!

And so, I ran, I ran hard, and all those aforementioned thoughts, I believed. At the time, whilst desperately gasping for oxygen, I thought for sure a few of those intervals were going to break me… probably didn’t help that somehow I started my first interval with a double 800 INSTEAD of a 400/800!!! What the???

MONDAY’S SPEED TRAINING

5 a.m. BG before: 6.9

Temp. basal: none

Carbs: granola bar (14g) with bolus

Distance: 9.12 km

Time: 55:22

Average interval pace: 4:45 min/km

6:30 a.m. BG after: 8.4

And following that run, I did something I NEVER do. I looked ahead in my program to see what next week’s plan was. BIG MISTAKE!!! (I like to live in a world of blissful ignorance!) If I thought this week’s intervals were bad, they ain’t nothing compared to next week’s hell – ALL 800s!!!

And so, dear readers, if you notice my blog has all of sudden fallen off the map, you can safely assume I’m 8 feet under 😉